Doing self-esteem exercises isn’t easy.
When you’re a mom, you tend to put your children before yourself. I know I do this – more often than I care to admit.
There’s nothing wrong with aiming at being the best mom you can be. In fact, there’s everything right with this. However, being the best mom also involves taking care of yourself as well.
I’ve always had issues with self-esteem and confidence. It tends to ebb and flow – one day, I may look at myself and think I’m awesome, and then the next the negative thoughts are back, bringing me down.
My husband is great about complimenting me – but on those off days even this doesn’t get through.
That’s why I did my research and went hunting for some self-esteem exercises I could implement to change how I saw myself.
With the online world of social media, self-esteem exercises are hard. I find it almost impossible not to compare myself to the picture perfect models of Instagram. Most of the time, I choose to stay off it completely lest I crumble into a useless, emotional wreck.
But enough about me. Let's talk about you. Trust me, I know what it's like to look in the mirror and not love yourself. I know what it's like to not feel like you're worth it – but you are. Everyone is, and everyone is deserving of this feeling.
Self-esteem, like most other things in life, gets better if you make a habit of it. If you commit to changing up your routine and introducing new, positive things into your lifestyle, you'll come out on top and feel like you can do anything.
After all, was said and done, I came up with four self-esteem exercises to help with how I was feeling. They’ve gone a long way in making me feel good about myself – and I hope they can help you, too.
1. Exercise
Pretty ironic that we’re talking about self-esteem exercises and the first suggestion is just that – exercise.
But there’s a lot to be said for it. This is because exercise, as you probably already know, releases endorphins, which are the body’s feel-good hormones.
It almost goes without saying that if you have a lot of endorphins on board, you're going to see an improvement in how you look at yourself.
I also love exercise because it's a great way to increase my motivation and practice my goal setting, as well as boosting my self-esteem. Remember, Rome wasn't built in a day, and you can't be too hard on yourself.
Begin by setting yourself smaller, more manageable goals, and increase them as you go along.
2. Cognitive Behavioural Therapy
My list of five self-esteem exercises is definitely a mixed bag, but I wanted to give you a range of options so that you could find one that suited your lifestyle and preferences.
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy is a type of treatment that focuses on the underlying thought patterns behind how we act and what we tell ourselves and others.
In layman’s terms, CBT focuses on the negative thoughts you have swirling around in your head and works on trying to replace them instead with positive ones.
This is because there’s a good chance your self-esteem is low because of what you tell yourself. Using CBT as a regular self-esteem exercise is great because it gets to the bottom of the issue.
If you’re looking to learn more about CBT, I recommend reading a book called Cognitive Behavioural Therapy by Lawrence Wallace.
3. You Do You
Now, let’s talk about a couple of self-esteem exercises that are simple, yet effective. Adjusting how you see yourself and building self-confidence doesn’t have to be a long, difficult journey.
A lot of the time, you can begin to see change just by making minor adjustments to your daily routine. This includes something that I mentioned at the beginning – stop comparing yourself to others.
If you’re like me and struggle with this in particular, I would strongly suggest you get rid of your social media temporarily. This will give you a great chance to get introspective and focus on what you need for a period of time.
This also includes being kind to yourself. Try telling yourself things that you like about yourself, and starting a daily habit of this.
4. Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff
You might have already heard this time and time again, but it's true. Celebrating the small victories is a great way to take your mind away from the negative stuff that you see and instead of understanding what you're grateful for every day.
This self-esteem exercise helped me a lot. I felt so focused on the things I didn’t like about myself that I forgot to be grateful for everything that I did have.
Now, I see myself differently. I am so thankful that every day is a new day to start fresh and be who I want to be. I'm so grateful for the health of my family and the opportunities I'm presented with regularly.
Check out this excellent book on how not to sweat the small stuff. It helped me with this self-esteem exercise and really changed my perspective.
One thing’s for sure: you’re not alone in this. There are many people out there, including me, who are dealing with self-esteem issues.
The thing to remember is that no matter where you're at in life or what your circumstance is, you're worth it. All it takes is a small daily adjustment to see a considerable amount of change.
Check out my blog on mindful thinking - positive thoughts go a long way!
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Which self-esteem exercise do you think you’ll try? Let me know!